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Don’t ride shotgun

It’s time to head over to the ballpark. Strength and Conditioning Coach John Philbin has recruited us to follow him around for the day, so we meet him, Third Base Coach Pat Listach, and assistant coaches Trent Jewett and Tim Foli to share a cab to the park.

As we’ve previously mentioned, a lot of the down time on a roadtrip is filled with idle chatter, and this cab ride is no different. There’s a little talk about Derek Lowe’s performance the night before or what it’s like having family on a roadtrip. But then the coaches decide to have a little fun with neophytes on this roadtrip, suggesting we should have followed Foli around yesterday instead of Dave Jageler. “Was he doing something interesting or fun?” we asked.

They got a kick out of this predictably gullible response. “He walked to the ballpark, wouldn’t that have been good to cover?” We like cardio as much as the next guy, but we’ll take our workout with Jageler over a 10+ mile walk, any day. To his credit, Foli doesn’t take it personally, and we promise to make it up to him with a walk around the warning track once we arrive to Turner Field.

As we pull up to the visitor’s clubhouse, it quickly becomes apparent why the coaches were so generous in offering us the front seat. We’re not sure if it’s an unwritten baseball rule, or more good-natured ribbing of the newbies, but we’re told that the guy riding shotgun picks up the cab fare. The coaches seemed to get a kick out of this, as well. If nothing else, we aim to be entertaining. At least on this cab ride, it appears we have succeeded.

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